_The fourth installment of the French review takes up the operations in
Flanders, as follows:_
The German attack in Flanders was conducted strategically and tactically
with remarkable energy. The complete and indisputable defeat in which it
resulted is therefore significant.
The forces of which the enemy disposed for this operation between the
sea and the Lys comprised:
(1) The entire Fourth Army commanded by the Duke of Württemberg,
consisting of one naval division, one division of Ersatz Reserve, (men
who had received no training before the war,) which was liberated by the
fall of Antwerp; the Twenty-second, Twenty-third, Twenty-sixth and
Twenty-seventh Reserve Corps, and the Forty-eighth Division belonging to
the Twenty-fourth Reserve Corps.
(2) A portion of another army under General von Fabeck, consisting of
the Fifteenth Corps, two Bavarian corps and three (unspecified)
divisions.
(3) Part of the Sixth Army under the command of the Crown Prince of
Bavaria. This army, more than a third of which took part in the battle
of Flanders, comprised the Nineteenth Army Corps, portions of the
Thirteenth Corps and the Eighteenth Reserve Corps, the Seventh and
Fourteenth Corps, the First Bavarian Reserve Corps, the Guards, and the
Fourth Army Corps.
(4) Four highly mobile cavalry corps prepared and supported the action
of the troops enumerated above. Everything possible had been done to
fortify the "morale" of the troops. At the beginning of October the
Crown Prince of Bavaria in a proclamation had exhorted his soldiers "to
make the decisive effort against the French left wing," and "to settle
thus the fate of the great battle which has lasted for weeks."
[Illustration: Map showing the swaying battle line from Belfort to the
North Sea and the intrenched line on April 15, 1915.]
On Oct. 28, Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria declared in an army order that
his troops "had just been fighting under very difficult conditions,"
and he added: "It is our business now not to let the struggle with our
most detested enemy drag on longer.... The decisive blow is still to be
struck." On Oct. 30, General von Deimling, commanding the Fifteenth Army
Corps (belonging to General von Fabeck's command,) issued an order
declaring that "the thrust against Ypres will be of decisive
importance." It should be noted also that the Emperor proceeded in
person to Thielt and Courtrai to exalt by his presence the ardor of his
troops. Finally, at the close of October, the entire German press
incessantly proclaimed the importance of the "Battle of Calais." It is
superfluous to add that events in Poland explain in a large measure the
passionate resolve of the German General Staff to obtain a decision in
the Western theatre of operations at all costs. This decision would be
obtained if our left were pierced or driven in. To reach Calais, that
is, to break our left; to carry Ypres, that is, to cut it in half;
through both points to menace the communications and supplies of the
British expeditionary corps, perhaps even to threaten Britain in her
island--such was the German plan in the Battle of Flanders. It was a
plan that could not be executed.